symmetri tions; but in reality he only obscured it. Neither §4. Empedocles, as we may infer from our records, thought he approaches more nearly to an appreciation of these quessolved the tions. As we have already repeatedly observed, he held that question by his theory all the particular operations of sense are effected by anоррoal of pores and entering the pores of the sensory organ, when each organ cal emana- has its fitting object supplied, and when relations of symmetry subsist between the añoрpoal from the object and the pores of the organ. Here, then, we find a conception of a common characteristic of all varieties of sense-perception: this requisite συμμετρία between the ἀπορροαί and the πόροι. did he help to answer But nevertheless for Empedocles there is in this nothing the ques- peculiarly characteristic of sensation. Such agreement between anоррoal and the pores of objects is the universal condition of the interaction of material bodies. Theophrastus, therefore, pertinently asks, how animate beings differ, according to Empedocles, from inanimate in this respect? Shall we have to admit that, when emanations from a body fit the pores of an inanimate body, the latter has sensible mt experience of the former? or have all things whatever la capacity for sense-perception? If Empedocles' theory were sufficient, says Theophrastus, all substances which naturally blend together should be said to perceive tion by his principle that' 'like perceives like.' It would be worth while to consider how far in this notion of ovμHerpía Empedocles anticipates or paves the way for the Aristotelean doctrine of the μεσότης or λόγος of each αἰσθητήριον, in virtue whereof it grasps the form without the matter of the air@nróv. As regards the composition of σáps and dσTour, Aristotle himself states (642 19-24) that Empedocles made these severally to consist of a λόγος τῆς μείξεως TWV σTOLXELWV-not of any one or two or three elements, or of all merely put together. 2 De Sens. §§ 7 and 12. one another Another point in which, according to SCA Empedocles, all sensory operations agree is that like is perceived by like. We perceive external objects by elect ments homogeneous, or identical in kind, with them, forming adla part of our bodily structure and constituting the soul itself. Thus to the former requisite relation of ovuμerpla is added ont 2 the further requirement of duocorns between object and organ. By this second principle also, Empedocles did but little which could be said to raise psychology above the level of physics. He showed, indeed, or tried to show, in what the various kinds of sense-perception agree, but not that which at the same time distinguishes them from physical processes. Rather he implicitly denied that there is any such fundamental distinction. Perception is for him only interpenetration—a material conception. We shall, indeed, find that philosophers divide themselves, henceforth, on this very point, viz. into (1) those who assert (implicitly or explicitly) that there is no difference at bottom between sense-perception and physical interaction, and (2) those who maintain such da fundamental difference. walo sull Qubala aquana Democritus.  critus the :sensation: action is nor can a funda § 5. Democritus considered all relations between realities For Demoof every kind as reducible to the purely mechanical form. difference Therefore for him no difference could be admitted ulti- between mately between the kind of interaction involved in sense- and physiperception and that involved in the action of any atomic cal interbodies upon one another. All interaction whatever consists merely in or involves contact: and this is as true of the interaction apparent; between a percipient and a perceived object as of any other. there be Sensation is due in the last resort to a contact between mental the objects of sense, or añoррoal from these, all of which are difference atoms combined in various ways, and the spherical atoms sensation of which the soul is composed. Theophrastus strangely lect. All hesitates as to whether for Democritus sense-perception was interaction 1 Theophr. de Sens. § 12. Empedocles no doubt would accept the full consequences of his cosmical doctrine. Despite his discrimination οἱ γυίων πίστις from νοεῖν, he did not believe in any absolute distinction between sensible and insensible forms of interaction: cf. Rohde, Psyche, ii. 171 seqq. between and intel whatever, or was not to be explained by the interaction of like with. that of per like 1 When we reflect that for Democritus differences of cipiens and percipien kind, being all due to sensory discrimination (which cancluded, is not be ultimate), must resolve themselves into quantitative ultimately differences, and that he allowed even physical interaction interaction between similars (a doctrine in which he differs from the dum in mechanical between atoms in a void, majority), we cannot share such hesitation. It is, therefore, manifest that we cannot find in the doctrine of Democritus anything to distinguish sensory facts from physical facts: the former are but a mode of the larger physical total, What, then, has he to say on the other side of the question, viz. as to the common feature in which all sensory facts agree? We can find no clear statement on this point either. The facts of sense-perception are reduced to physical facts of contact between the object and the organ: that is all. Did Demo-§ 6. On the general subject of sensation, however, it is ceive of interesting to notice a dictum contained in the Placita, actual that Democritus regarded the alo@noeis as being more αἰσθητά which our numerous than the alooŋrá, but that owing to want of correspondence between the alo@nrá and the multitude of of perceiv- alo@noels, some of the latter (or the former?) escape observaing? Or of αἰσθήσεις tion 2. Diels (Dox., p. 399 n.) renders: sensuum affectiones of which plures sunt perceptis, sed cum percepta multitudini (affecourselves tionum) non respondeant, illae non omnes agnoscuntur. In uncon-his lately issued Vorsokratiker (p. 388), however, he illusbitrates by quoting Lucret. iv. 800 quia tenuia sunt, nisi se critus con senses are incapable we are scious? contendit acute, cernere non potis est animus. Zeller, on the other hand (Pre-Socr. ii. 267 n., E. Tr.), supplies (not καὶ τὰς αἰσθήσεις as Diels, but) τὰ αἰσθητά before λανθάνειν, and interprets the passage às having in its original form meant that much is perceptible which is not perceived by us, because it is not adapted to our senses.' This interpretatation Siebeck (Geschichte der Psychologie, pt. i. p. 114) adopts, and, as an illustration, mentions our want of a sense De Sens. § 49. See p. 24, n. I supra. Stob. Ecl. i. 51, Diels, Dox., p. 399, Vors., p. 388 (πóσaι elow, ai αἰσθήσεις) Δημόκριτος πλείους μὲν εἶναι τὰς αἰσθήσεις τῶν αἰσθητῶν τῷ δὲ μὴ ἀναλογίζειν (ἀναλογεῖν, Diels) τὰ αἰσθητὰ τῷ πλήθει (sc. τῶν αἰσθήσεων, Diels) Xaveável. What does 'correspondence' or 'analogy' here mean? for the perception of magnetic currents, which we can only conceive by translating them psychologically into phenomena of seeing.' It is true that Democritus was committed to a belief in the infra-sensible qualities of the atoms, which are alo@nrá, perhaps, ex hypothesi, but disproportionate' to our alo@noels. Still, in order to get the sense which Zeller and Siebeck find in the words, we should have πλείω τῶν αἰσθήσεων τὰ αἰσθητά, or else take ràs alo@noeis as equivalent to possible sensations, or sensory powers, and rov alobŋrov as actualized percepts, which would be very awkward, even if legitimate. Interesting as it would, no doubt, be to find Democritus (who stood at the head of the science' of that time) conceiving tones which our ears cannot hear, colours which our eyes cannot see, and so on, as well as the infra-sensible atoms themselves on which his physical theory rested, yet it is more than questionable whether-on the strength of an excerpt (such as that here under discussion) five hundred years at least later than the writings of Democritus, and of a doubtful reading or interpretation of it-we have any right whatever to attribute such conceptions to him. Besides, such a theory would implicitly objectivize the so-called secondary qualities, contrary to all that we know of his teaching. Adopting Diels' rather than Zeller's construction, we might as well, and with equál justification, find in the words the germ of some such theory as that of socalled latent mental modifications,' or that of perceptions insensibles afterwards developed by Leibniz. Our aloonσεις are more numerous than our alonτá (Democritus might then seem to say), because we do not notice the former unless when we notice the latter. In modern terms, we do not notice sensations which, not being referred to an object, are not perceptions. There are, in this way, many alo@noels which pass without being attended to or coming 'into consciousness.', The argument of Arist. de An. iii. 1, that there are not more senses than the recognized five,' was directed, perhaps, against the very speculation of Democritus (whatever it really was), which is alluded to in kinds of interaction. ever, show difference ... the above words of the Placita, but of which unfortunately we know nothing more nitakanal, vd ovisno vino 1 Anaxagoras. gao la susmond For Anaxa-87. According to Anaxagoras vous was the principle of goras, who held that orderly movement, both in the cosmos and in the individual. the soul is He did not distinguish vous from yux, representing both absolutely hetero- as absolutely different from any form (or, at least, from geneous to any other form) of material things. While he implies the the objects of the phy- peculiarity of the interaction implied in sensation, we look sical world, in vain to him for an account of it. He does not define the general features which characterize all sensory activity, implied in →perception and, at the same time distinguish it from other kinds of is quite activity. The scattered sayings in reference to the senses different from other which we find attributed to him, do not help us much towards the solution of such a problem. Sense-perception He does was necessarily (according to his doctrine of vous ayns) not, how effected by the relation of unlike to unlike, or rather of conus what the traries, to one another. The sensory act implied, for is. We Anaxagoras, as for Aristotle, a change (allolwois) of some only know sort in the organ of perception. This appeared possible that per- only if the organ and the object were dissimilar. Thus the ception reflexion in the eye, on which seeing depends, is formed in the part of the eye which is different in colour from the object. We perceive heat and cold by touch only wh traries. But the object touched is hotter or colder than the organ. So with the other senses. We perceive all qualities in the object according to the excess or defect of them in the organ. part played by soul in But all qualities exist in our organs, though in different tion of per- proportions; so that the contrasts required for perception cipiens to of objects are always possible in experience. This doctrine, percipiendum- however, of perception by contrast (of qualities within to in other qualities without the organism), together with the other words, the peculiarity doctrine of πâv èv navrí, does not go far to clear up the distinctive and general features of sense-perception, or obscurity. furnish us with a point of view from which to contemplate 4. For the conception of αἰσθήσεις, as well as αἰσθητά, too small to be noticeable, at least actually,' cf. Arist. de Sens. vi. 446a 7–15.' ' Cf. Arist. 404 1-3. from him takes place by the interaction of con these are physical, and the the rela involved is left in Theophr. de Sens. §§ 27-8; Diels, Dox., p. 507. 18 mávтa yàp ἐνυπάρχειν ἐν ἡμῖν. |